Summer Gold: Midnight Oil, 'Cold Cold Change'

An absolute outlier on this collection, 'Cold Cold Change' was not a hit (actually, that makes it less unusual in context) and it sticks out like dog's balls. Midnight Oil were a big enough name by 1979 that there might have been reasonable expectation that they'd hit the charts with this record, but they didn't. Of course it's a complete classic, though.

As mentioned, my copy of Summer Gold is a cassette, and while I don't know precisely what the mastering requirements were for a cassette as opposed to vinyl (obviously, packing a whole lot of songs onto a side of a vinyl record made them quieter - but audio quality wasn't the point of course - either on vinyl or cassette, which were known to be inferior sound quality) there is some weird shit going down when this song comes on - it sounds quieter than everything else, and the opening seconds which should by rights be a cataclysm sound like a bedroom demo and not in a good way. It's also, I'm pretty sure, edited curiously: not only does it fade out on the Summer Gold version but I have a feeling that there is about 15 seconds of instrumental section removed before the stop-start 'No!' part. Whether this is the 7" single edit, or a special edit for Summer Gold, I don't know.



This is the greatest period of Midnight Oil in my opinion (the first, self-titled, album,* Head Injuries album and the Bird Noises EP). Maybe not the greatest? But my favourite. I wonder if the band was more annoyed by the editing of the song or being jumbled together with a bunch of disco tracks (Peter Garrett reputedly lit a bonfire of disco records somewhere in Sydney's western suburbs around this time). Ha, ha, ha, sucked in. Corporate cock. ETC

*I have spent the last few days listening repeatedly to this album, which I found my cassette copy of recently. It's a treat, and forty years old this year! 'Surfing with a Spoon' is a particularly remarkable piece of work because, call me naive, I think it does effectively evoke an ocean feel. They must have felt pretty smug about that, but for all I know - it's not a genre that's engaged me a huge amount - this marks them as adherents or the latest iteration of that surf rock scene of the early 70s. 'Surfing with a Spoon' has excellent cheesy organ reminiscent to me of ELP, and some fab dynamics. I don't know why this album gets such a bad rap, it's got it all (admittedly the song about being arrested at 'the demonstration' is a bit too Skyhooksy).